CHAPTER II — The Master’s Decree: Veiled Echoes
3056 Words
Silence descended like receding tide, carrying away venomous snickers and glacial disdain. Beneath the soaring vault of Jiangcheng International Airport, Qin Hao stood alone.
The air clung thick with cloying perfume and Shen Qingxue’s lingering scent of ice and razor-edges—a nauseating paradox.
The slap’s brand seared his cheek. Blood’s iron tang lingered on his tongue, congealed humiliation lodged in his throat. Deep within his veins, ancient fury—primordial, ravenous—surged against its chains, hammering at the ramparts of reason with every drumbeat pulse of his heart.
H̷U̸M̵M̷—
Heat erupted from the unassuming bronze ring on his left hand. Not mere warmth, but bone-searing fire blooming from its core. Hidden within its inner band, microscopic dragon-glyphs writhed to life.
In his mind’s eye, Qin Hao saw: the dragon-head emblem marking the Primordial Waters of Gonggong coiled in rage within the ring! A torrent of abyssal blue flame—dark as deepest frost—scorched its obsidian scales. Each twisting coil radiated soul-numbing cold fury, wielding the apocalyptic might to churn oceans and shatter continents!
This ring, thrust into his palm with his dying master’s final breath—his sole inheritance—now burned with terrifying purpose. The old man’s fading eyes had blazed then: “Wear it… live… five years…” Cold and heavy once, now its power howled beneath unbearable shame.
The Nine Dragons stir! The ring cries warning!
A torrential, baleful will surged through the scalding brand—a glacial river of ages, carrying the berserk force of Water itself. It scoured his mind: Strike! Tear the arrogant wretch apart! Drown this impious city! Let floods cleanse this filth! Make them crawl beneath P̷o̷w̷e̷r̷! Ancient hunger roared. Freedom beckoned!
Then, from the abyss, a final, rasping command seized his heart like a death-claw:
“Q̵i̴n̵ ̴H̸a̵o̷! F̸i̵v̶e̵ ̸Y̷e̸a̶r̶s̵! P̴l̵a̵y̵ ̵t̸h̷e̷ ̷c̵r̵i̸p̸p̴l̴e̸! S̶u̸r̶v̴i̴v̷e̵! W̸e̷d̷ ̶a̵ ̵S̷h̷e̴n̶! ̶
The master’s death-groan—a thunderbolt, a white-hot brand—seared its weight into Qin Hao’s soul: desperation, love, an ironclad plea. That life-sacrificed charge crushed heavier than divine blades. Agony flared—deadly grip on his wrist-bone—memorializing a debt bought with his master’s last blood.
Five years. Play the cripple. Survive. Wed a Shen.
Twelve words. Twelve chains of obsidian inscribed with writhing purple sigils—f*******n, burning—manifested from the void. Wrapped around his pounding heart, carrying the suffocating finality of cosmic law, they shackled the Nine Dragons’ rising rage!
*K̵A̶-̶B̴O̶O̵O̴M̵—*
Invisible forces collided within. Qin Hao shuddered violently. Stifled blood surged bitter iron up his throat. The dragon-rage of Gonggong screamed—a soul-rending keen—before being dragged back into the ring. The berserk will choked into stillness.
But… one chain—the one forged from “Five Years”—bore a hairline fracture. A c***k barely perceivable, edged with annihilating darkness.
The deadline held… yet the fissure spread.
Qin Hao drew a deep breath. Chilled terminal air flooded his lungs, smothering the conflagration inside. He plucked the final, trampled crimson betrothal scrap and pressed it between aged pages of the thread-bound Shennong’s Herbal Sutra. His thumb brushed the rough paper, lingering on phantom warmth, before shouldering his heavy pack. He walked out into Jiangcheng.
Jiangcheng, Shen Estate.
A sprawling anomaly amidst prime downtown real estate. Ancient high walls, thick with emerald vines, shielded a mansion where tiled rooflines met modernist glass. Today, the edifice exuding decades of dynastic strength felt like a tomb awaiting its storm—oppressive and silent.
Air hung saturated with antiseptic and the pervasive, cloying scent of mortal decay.
The master suite occupied the east wing’s end. Its door stood barred; beside it, two impeccably dressed guards radiated rigid fear.
Qin Hao’s figure materialized outside the estate’s colossal brass doors—an errant speck of dust landing on boiling oil. His rustic garb, grotesquely incongruous amidst the splendor, drew stares ten times more vicious than the airport’s.
“Halt! Beggar trash! This is Shen territory! Scram!” A black-suited steward jabbed a finger near Qin Hao’s nose, voice thick with revulsion.
Qin Hao remained impassive. His gaze pierced stone walls, locking onto the eastern suite. His fingertips remembered the frantic, failing rhythm sensed on airport tiles.
*CRASH!*
The suite’s thick door—a portal to hell—burst inward.
A tidal wave of medicinal sting and putrid death-stench flooded the corridor.
“Father! F̴a̵t̸h̷e̶r̴—!” A woman’s shriek—hoarse with raw terror—shattered the silence.
An elegant, middle-aged woman—Shen Qingxue’s mother, Zhou Huiyun—stumbled out, hair disheveled, face corpse-white. She collapsed onto opulent carpet. Behind her, Jiangcheng’s top medical luminaries emerged, faces ashen, eyes hollow with dread and apocalyptic fear. The eldest physician removed trembling spectacles, addressing the thunder-faced Shen Yaoyang (Shen Qingxue’s father, Shen Clan heir):
“M… Mr. Shen… Patriarch’s cardiopulmonary systems… collapsed! Every stimulant… every treatment… futile! Bio-signals plummeting! Respiration… BP… critical! Five minutes… maybe less! Prepare…” The icy verdict crushed hope.
“N̶O̵O̴O̶!̷” Zhou Huiyun’s scream scraped raw terror as she clawed the carpet, crawling toward doom.
Clan members froze: faces bleached white, choked sobs, trembling limbs. Others exchanged furtive, calculating glances.
Shen Yaoyang stood central in his tailored suit, imposing and grim. His eyes flashed—complex shadows beneath the grief and rage: fury at disrupted schemes, a thread of dark satisfaction? His voice, heavy with practiced sorrow and iron command, quelled chaos: “Panic now?! Alert all kin! Second uncle: summon Abbot Xuanming from White Cloud Temple! Father followed the Dao! His journey must be honored!” His efficient funeral arrangements deepened despair. Death’s countdown choked the air.
“Move! Let me through!” A voice, clear yet frayed with tears, cut from the stairwell.
Qin Hao stepped aside.
A young woman surged forward. Clad in simple ivory linen, she moved like grace incarnate—a snow lotus in pristine bloom. Her face, bearing echoes of Shen Qingxue’s beauty softened by ethereal gentleness, held eyes of astonishing clarity. Though blurred by tears, they shone impossibly pure.
Shen Qingwu. Shen Qingxue’s half-sister. Blind since birth.
She ignored the chaos, the prostrate mother. Her unfocused gaze swept the hall, searching—not with sight, but an uncanny sense.
“Qingwu! Blind fool! Adding chaos now?!” Zhou Huiyun spat. Shen Yaoyang frowned, displeasure darkening.
Qingwu pressed on, driven by desperate instinct, stumbling to the suite’s threshold. Hands outstretched, she groped blindly toward her grandfather’s fading life-force.
Then she froze. Sniffed the air intently. Her head snapped toward Qin Hao.
“You!” Qingwu’s voice held eerie certainty, a spark in the void. “At the airport… I saw you! I felt you!” Her ‘seeing’ was movement, breath, essence. “You… carry mountain soil… dust… and something else… ancient… pure… like clean medicine! Better… cleaner than those chemical stinks!” Clutching at hope’s phantom thread, she implored him: “Help my grandfather! Please! Only your scent… lacks this place’s plague breath! P̸l̴e̵a̷s̴e̷!̶” Tears traced her porcelain cheeks.
“Absurdity! Shen Qingwu! Blind AND mindless?!” Shen Yaoyang’s roar held offense and icy scorn. His gaze swept Qin Hao’s attire—a master viewing maggot-ridden refuse. “This ditch-worm? Healing Father? Profaning his final peace?!” Spittle flew.
“Father! T̸h̸e̶r̷e̸’̸s̴ ̸n̶o̷ ̴t̷i̴m̷e̵!̵” Qingwu met her father’s authority for the first time, voice soft yet burning with defiance she couldn’t see. “Others reek of death… it’s swallowing Grandfather! L̷e̶t̸ ̸h̷i̷m̶ ̵t̵r̶y̴!̷” Her slender frame braced the doorway—a frail, desperate sentinel.
Shen clan and servants stared at Qin Hao now like he was plague incarnate. This mud-flea—saving the Patriarch? Insanity! Defilement!
Shen Yaoyang gestured brutally—drag her away.
“Five million.”
The words fell: cold iron on stone. Utter stillness.
Every eye snapped to Qin Hao’s face—stunned disbelief.
“He wants MONEY?! NOW?!”
“Security! Throw him on the refuse heap!”
“Qingwu’s bespelled! Move her!”
Outrage detonated.
A flicker—triumph? calculation?—passed through Shen Yaoyang’s stare as he fixed on Qin Hao’s terrifyingly placid face. Seconds stretched, taut as wire.
“DONE!” Shen Yaoyang slashed the air, voice a frozen blade. “Draw the contract! Succeed? Five million. F̵a̴i̷l̴?” His glare promised annihilation: “Your bones line his coffin!”
“Father!” Qingwu gasped, color draining.
Qin Hao ignored the currency, the threat—dust motes. He ignored stares: disgust, fury, mockery, despair, Qingwu’s sightless plea. He stepped forward. As the steward moved to block, Qin Hao’s shoulder shifted, infinitesimally.
He slid past the knot of bodies like smoke.
No guard reacted.
He stood within the suite’s choking maw. The heavy door shut behind him with a final *THUD*, sealing off the world.
Luxury drowned in a mortuary chill. Heavy velvet blotted windows. Sullen wall lamps cast phantom light on a room vast as a grave. The air: acrid antiseptic, organ decay, bitter drugs, and the faint, metallic tang of despair—a suffocating miasma.
In the vast European bed, Shen Yuehan—pillar of Jiangcheng—lay sunken. The colossus of commerce and politics now resembled discarded driftwood. Wasted limbs, draped in ruined gold silk, showed bones stark beneath papery, clammy skin. Hair, greying and sparse, clung to a sweat-slicked brow. His face: grey-purple as ancient clay, corpse-like. His chest scarcely stirred. Only a faint, ragged k-sshh… k-sshh… escaped blue-tinged lips—each pause a hammer blow to witness. Beside the bed, sleek monitors winked terminal red lines—heart, blood pressure, oxygen—plunging like stones into oblivion. The room drowned in a syrupy atmosphere of resignation. Death’s claw squeezed.
Qin Hao advanced. With each step toward the miasma, the ring’s dragon-marker for Gonggong’s Waters thrashed more violently! An icy, savage hunger beat through the burning brand: CONSUME! This decay is primordial Water! Pure annihilation-force! Take it! S̶t̷r̸e̴n̴g̷t̷h̸ ̸u̵n̴i̷m̴a̸g̸i̴n̸a̸b̷l̶e̵!
But the chains of “Five Years Play Cripple” flared around his heart! Spectral links tightened! Shackling the ravenous call!
Qin Hao inhaled deeply. The stench of rot and chemicals entered his lungs like stones dropped into a fathomless, icy tarn.
His gaze sharpened—obsidian daggers slicing gloom—piercing Shen Yuehan’s ashen face. Deep within his eyes, a flicker of gilded light—antique candle-flame—died instantly. Sight Beyond the Veil—Shennong’s highest art—unfolded.
Shen Yuehan’s physical form dissolved. Instead, viscous rivulets of obsidian-grey Death Qi oozed from the dying man’s core organs and capillaries—greedy maggots devouring the last faint wisps of Life Qi. The rot was advanced, inevitable. Worse—buried deep within this tidal decay, Qin Hao caught a discordant trace: a wisp of sickly lavender-purple Sickness Qi. Like a meticulously placed hex, coiled around the crucial heart/lung meridians—accelerating decay with unnatural venom.
Deliberate? Poison-curse? An “accident” exquisitely staged?
The faintest ghost of a cold smirk touched Qin Hao’s lips. Of course. The Shen depths run dark.
No time for investigation.
Three minutes.
Qin Hao struck! Movement blurred!
*THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!*
Four fingers fused into a single jade hammer! Knuckles capable of splitting granite slammed down, carrying a pure, vital thrum of Life Force, directly onto four deeply buried meridian nodes locked to Shen Yuehan’s critical cardio-pulmonary nexus!
Force cleaved flesh to bone! Penetrated organs!
The dying body jackknifed! A strangled, agonized groan tore from a desiccated throat! A beast facing its s*******r!
*G̷-̴U̶-̸H̴H̵!̸*
Life Force erupted through the channels! Sludge—vile, congealed—a horrific torrent of tarry blood and necrotic fluid exploded from the patriarch’s nose and mouth!
Blackened gore! Stench of necrotic tissue!
It gouted in obscene volume, instantly staining priceless silk! A scene designed to shatter sanity!
Outside, through discreet acoustic implants, Shen Yaoyang and his chief guard caught the grotesque sound: the choking, the spew!
“Bastard! He’s killing him!” Shen Yaoyang’s roar mixed shock and manufactured wrath. Elation seethed beneath. “BREACH! Take the murderer!!!” He howled the order.
Panic surged! Bodies crashed the door!
“WAIT!” Shen Qingwu’s cry pierced the din. Her veiled eyes, pressed near the door-jamb, had glimpsed the chaos inside: the convulsion, the black torrent. But she also saw—not with eyes, but a soul-perception: an unimaginable flood of primal Life Energy—pure, ancient, radiant as dawn-sun—exploding from the worn jacket’s fingertips! It tore the suffocating Death Qi like brittle parchment! Briefly—violently—a c***k opened in Death’s doorway!
Soul-rending certainty shook her. She gasped: “N̴̤̓ő̵͚! He purges the corruption!”
Her words—strangely potent—halted the guards’ charge!
Inside—in that frozen breath of reprieve—Qin Hao’s pressing palm lifted from the sternum. A pulse of gentler power—verdant, spring-fed—flowed unseen into the ruined chest cavity.
Then—motion beyond speed! He ignored the blinking red machines. Instead, he snatched the worn knapsack Shen Yaoyang’s men had reluctantly allowed inside.
*SHHHHHRRRK!*
He dumped its contents onto a priceless ebony table. Roots, thick with damp earth and primal vibes; desiccated insects pale as grave-bone; knuckle-sections of some ancient beast; dull-colored mineral nuggets; thin scrolls wrapped tight; and an array of needles—silver glinting like captured frost under a pale moon.
The longest needle—thick as an awl, forearm-length—pulsed with venomous power. Its dark metal drank light, its tip a dried ruby bead screaming of spilled life-blood. A mere glance triggered vertigo.
Qin Hao’s fingers, machine-precise, darted among these relics. Three slender stalks of faintly green-luminescent herbs vanished into his grip. A thumb’s shaving of bark—deep violet, like crushed starlight—scraped from a dense twig into fine dust. Two tear-shaped black stones nestled in his palm; his fist clenched—knuckles cracked!—they crumbled to velvet powder!
“Lifewood Sprout!”
“Telluric Loam!”
“Abyssal Stone Pith!”
Names lost to myth invoked!
Simultaneously, right hand: index, middle, thumb—snatched three needles of differing lengths, honed brighter than captured starlight!
*Z̵Z̵Z̸Z̸Z̸I̵N̵G̷—*
The needles hummed! Dragon-song!
Their bodies blazed—blinding sapphire radiance! Light seared Qin Hao’s dark irises into momentary godhood!
S̷h̷e̶n̴n̸o̵n̷g̵’̷s̷ ̶N̸e̶e̸d̶l̴e̷s̷ ̶o̸f̵ ̸S̴a̵l̴v̸a̴t̷i̵o̴n̷! Needles That Pierce the Veil!
Three fingers guided needle-fated steel! Arm became trident! Qin Hao’s focus narrowed to infinity! Three jade lightning bolts struck!
*THWIP! THWIP! THWIP!*
Minuscule, lethal punctures!
The longest Lifewood needle slammed into Shen Yuehan’s Baihui point (Crown Chakra)! Buried one inch three-tenths deep! The needle shaft vibrated violently, channeling torrents of emerald Life Force into the brain!
The Abyssal Stone needle—radiating cold star-fire—stabbed into the Tanzhong (Heart Protector)! Freezing vital conduits at the precipice of rupture!
The shortest, sharpest, Gold-Lightning needle—crackling with annihilative resolve—buried into the Dantian (Sea of Qi Core)! Thunder-force detonated within the deepest energy reservoir!
Three needles connected; three meridians ignited!
*HHHHHHHOOOORRRRK—!!!*
A sound like a leviathan erupting from abyssal trenches! Shen Yuehan’s chest heaved! His slack jaw gaped—a monstrous, choked, rattling expulsion of millennia-old phlegm tore loose!
K̵A̶-̷T̶H̷U̵M̶!
Beside the bed, the humming red lines of Shen Yuehan’s vital signs—heart rate, blood pressure, respiration, oxygen—executed an impossible reversal! Like comets reversing galactic trajectories, they rocketed skyward! No curve—a sheer vertical ascent! Shattering danger thresholds! Plunging into safe green zones! Some readings overshot average health!
The shrieking death-klaxons silenced instantly. Only the low, steady pulse of functional electronics remained.
The tomb-like room echoed with one sound now: Shen Yuehan’s increasingly powerful, tidal breaths! Deep, resonant, vital!
Life’s Thunderbolt struck the dead earth!
- Writer
